


unmoving

by strawberry_sky



Category: Dimension 20 (Fantasy High), Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Helplessness, Imprisonment, aberfaeth rights but in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberry_sky/pseuds/strawberry_sky
Summary: At some point in the battle at the Row and the Ruction, everyone finds themselves stuck--stunned, banished, unconscious, imprisoned, captured, or just too late to save the one person they were trying to save. Sometimes even when you win, you lose.
Relationships: The Bad Kids - Relationship
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97





	unmoving

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Fantasy High Live Episode 8!  
> this was gonna just be about Fabian, Adaine, and Aelwyn, and then I realized it could apply to literally everyone in this battle and.....yeah. oof. yeah.

**i. tracker**

The fight hadn't even properly _started_ yet. Tracker was just _setting up_ a circle that would buff everyone and keep them a little safer in this wildly improbable situation but then one of the elves _looked_ at her and then everything around her was gone. 

Tracker whips her head around. There's tall walls of polished stone all around her, a corridor that extends for several dozen feet before turning. Automatically, Tracker starts sprinting down it, shifting into her werewolf form as she does so. She slides around the corner and it's just more walls and more hallways and Tracker growls in frustration as she keeps running and time keeps passing. She’s familiar with _Banishment_ . Every six seconds that she's stuck here is a bad sign. Every six seconds is more time that the people she's supposed to be protecting are getting hurt, more time that her girlfriend is in danger--beautiful Kristen with her big stupid heart, casting fucking _Warding Bond_ and making herself take double damage and without Tracker they’re all down a healer and this is bad, this is _bad_.

Tracker casts her eyes to the sky. She lets out a long howl, a wordless plea for some _Divine Intervention_. 

There doesn't even seem to be a moon on this plane. 

Tracker stops running. That’s only tiring herself out. She forces herself to breathe evenly, the way Jawbone taught her. She presses her back against the cold stone wall and calls her strongest healing spell to her fingertips. She growls out a mix of prayers and curses and she waits, a poised predator, and she prays that there will still be someone for her to help when she gets back. 

**ii. fabian**

One crossbow bolt.

He gets off one crossbow bolt.

And it doesn’t even fucking hit.

It flies wide, because of course it does. He’s standing here in front of one of his father’s enemies, in front of this fucking squid-face-man who killed a bunch of people who _trusted_ him, who killed a bunch of his _siblings_ . This is Fabian’s moment! It’s his moment to prove that he’s the hero his father always thought he was! The moment to _prove_ it’s a better story than the last one!

And his crossbow bolt flies wide. 

Wicklaw steps back and snarls--no, _smiles_ . And his gleaming eyes are looking right at Fabian, looking past every defense Fabian has ever had and he throws back his head and lets out this _scream._ It’s a blast of energy and pain and hatred that shatters Fabian’s psyche, sends him stumbling back. Fabian tries to recover as quickly as he can. He tries to bring his crossbow back up and fire again. He tries to lunge towards James Wicklaw, to go leaping up into the Ruction. He's _Fabian Aramais Seacaster,_ he can _do this,_ come _on!_

But as quickly as he can think of what to do, his mind is filled with images of what would happen if he tried. Grabbing a rope that’s not secure and falling, getting tangled in nets and undergarments. The illithid grabbing him, wrapping him in tentacles, that snapping beak sucking his brains out. His crossbow bolt, flying wide. 

Normally Fabian doesn’t think, he just acts, but acting keeps getting him in trouble. And now it’s getting the people he cares about in trouble too. Kristen is taking damage for him. Cathilda is protecting him, worry written on her face. Adaine is speaking to the elves and _disappearing_. 

Fabian tries to pull himself together, to do _something_ , but the ringing in his head is deafening, and he’s so tired, and he can’t move more than a couple of stumbled steps. Gorgug and Riz are up there, toe-to-toe with Wicklaw, both of them bloodied but still fighting. It should be Fabian, it should be him, in every story ever told it would be him overcoming his weakness, fighting past his exhaustion, but instead he is just standing here standing here _standing here_ and he _cannot move_. 

**iii. kristen**

Tracker is gone.

Tracker is _gone_ , and Kristen can’t remember if she’s coming back, can’t remember how _Banishment_ works, she really should know this, this is one of the spells she knows but her mind is echoing with that blast the squid pirate sent out and she’s really having trouble focusing, here. ‘Cause it wasn’t just a blast of energy. It was a blast of hate.

Kristen _knows_ hate. Kristen grew up _soaked_ in hate. There was love, too, she knows that, and she’s trying really hard to focus on that, to focus on her brothers and on golden sunlight hitting fields of corn and on Pastor Amelia and on all the people her church was able to help but instead all she’s seeing is her parents brandishing their polearms at her, Coach Daybreak surrounded by an undead army, all the tiny subtle ways a hateful heart slips through a righteous exterior. 

She tries to collect her thoughts, but honestly Kristen’s not great at collecting her thoughts even under the best of circumstances and now she’s tailspinning again thinking about Helio, who’s like, kinda dumb, but overall not a bad guy, and is it _his_ fault that his followers are drowning in prejudice? Kinda feels like he could do something about it but maybe in the name of free will and not interfering he’s not supposed to, but really if he’s gonna represent _light_ he shouldn’t let there be so much _hate ‘_ cause, oh boy, there’s a lot of it. 

She’s vaguely aware of what’s going on in the battle around her. Adaine is picked up by an Air Elemental, and then she’s just gone. Gorgug is tearing into the pirate captain and then all of a sudden Wicklaw’s tentacles are around his _face_ and in her mind Kristen is reaching for him, yelling out a _Healing Word_ , but she can’t seem to make her mind remember what the words are supposed to be. Does she even have the power to cast spells, was that ever even real? What _is_ real? She’s trying to reach out to her source of divine power but it’s like trying to grasp light, and _maybe_ this would be _easier_ if she had a _real, actual god_ instead of just the fucking concept of seeking answers or whatever! 

She focuses, instead, on ice cream sandwiches, starts piling them up. Something sweet and cold and real. Ice cream sandwiches like the ones she and Tracker had during their first real date, at the pool last summer. Only she's not at the pool, and Tracker isn’t here, and her friends keep getting hurt and Kristen can't help them. 

She feels Warding Bond sucking her life force away every time the pirate captain aims his gun at Fabian, and she's glad for it, even as it drags her closer and closer to unconsciousness. At least she's still protecting her friends _somehow_ . She casts her gaze over to Fabian, who seems just as stunned as she is, eyes glazed over and wide in terror. Of course he's scared, she's scared too, this is _terrifying_ , and it isn't even really Fabian's fault--Wicklaw isn't even his enemy, he's his father's enemy, and now Fabian might get killed for nothing more than being related to Bill Seacaster. Hate, again. Kristen's been doing her best to be good and loving since she was seven years old and it's still not enough for all the hate and the friends who trust her to protect them are _dying_ and Kristen can't do anything to stop it.

**iv. fig**

Alright, so Fig knew from the very beginning that this wasn't going to go _great_.

Like, she trusts her friends and her mom and they're all the coolest and most powerful people around, _obviously_ , but she saw how shaken up Fabian was after the _last_ time he fought this pirate _and_ there's these preppy elves up there so. Probably not going to go _great_. 

In the split second between sizing up the situation and battle actually being joined, Fig made a decision. It would be nice to stop Captain James for Fabian’s sake, but they might have to let that one go. Let him become president of pirate island or whatever was going on here.

As long as they don’t lose Adaine, every other compromise is fine. 

She fixes that goal in her mind. _Adaine, Adaine, Adaine_ , a quiet background beat as she lines up a _Shatter_ , aims it right at the feet of that gang of elves. She lets out a growl of frustration as it bounces harmlessly off their ball of magical energy and then all of them are stunned and everything is going to shit even _faster_ than she expected and somehow before she knows it Adaine is _up there_ \--and turning to stone, by the look of it. 

“Not allowed,” Fig mutters through gritted teeth. She wants to cast _Shatter_ again, obliterate all of these motherfuckers, but she can’t do it safely with Adaine right there. So instead she’s running for Gorgug, yelling out “You wanna go for a ride?” as she grabs the back of his hoodie and swings him up with her through the _Dimension Door_ until they both land right behind Adaine, and _ooh fuck these elves are way more intimidating up close_. Fig wishes she had a cool one-liner as she leaps to another platform, giving herself a little more distance, but she’s busy racking her brain for a plan that’s going to get all of them out here. 

It’s not going well. 

As Fig lands on the second platform and spins around to look back at Adaine and the elves, she realizes that the elves are saying something to Adaine, and that Adaine has gone very still, and that the little elven girl is smiling. And Adaine takes a deep breath, and she nods, and she reaches out her hand, and time seems to slow down as Fig realizes what’s going on. She tries to call something out, to cast something, to do _something,_ but she’s too slow and she can only watch as Adaine touches the elf girl’s hand and then she and all the elves are _gone_ , just like that. 

“Adaine!” Fig screams, hand reached out to the space where her friend used to be. Fig would have given everything she had to save Adaine. But instead Adaine gave everything to save her, and to save the rest of their friends, and now she’s _gone._ And of course they’ll get her back. Of course they will. But right now Fig is just frozen, staring at the empty platform, and her eyes are filling with tears. 

**v. gorgug**

Gorgug is angry. 

He's angry because this pirate is trying to kill his friends. He's angry because Adaine is gone, because Adaine just sacrificed herself to save them _just_ as he got to her and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He's angry that Fabian is so upset and he doesn't know how to fix it. He’s angry because he can’t talk to Zelda. He's angry because this pirate city seemed so cool and instead it just _sucks_. 

He’s channeling every last bit of anger into the swing of his axe, intent on slicing Captain Wicklaw into ribbons. He thinks he’s yelling. He can’t really hear over the music in his headphones and the roaring in his ears. 

The pirate’s sword goes right between his ribs, but Gorgug barely feels the pain past his anger. He just grits his teeth and keeps standing, pulling back for another strike, vaguely aware of Sandralynn’s supportive, healing hand on his shoulder but mostly just in tunnel-vision. Gorgug can’t control much of what’s going on in his life, but he can control the force with which his axe is going into this pirate’s chest. 

He feels the sword plunge through his body again and again he shakes it off, but then the pirate’s stinging tentacles are whipping around his face and it’s like being stuck with a thousand needles, shooting white-hot pain through his whole body. Gorgug’s eyes roll back in his head, and he feels his body go limp, held on his feet only by the tentacles around his face and the pirate’s grip on his shoulders. Gorgug’s half-conscious mind is filled with a horrible shrieking sound as this beak is boring toward the center of his face and he isn’t angry anymore. And he isn’t scared, either. 

He’s just worried about his friends, and he’s just sad.

**vi. riz**

They need a fucking win. 

This isn't like a "oh, emotionally we really need a win right now" this is a "there is a very real chance that I and almost everyone I love will get killed right here in this fucked-up pirate city if I don't kill this man right here and now” and so Riz takes a deep breath and focuses until he can feel every beat of his heart, senses sharp and aware of everything around him but all attention on Captain Wicklaw. He hooks one arm around the rigging, keeping himself steady, and he squints an eye closed and he lines up his shot and he fires.

It hits Captain Wicklaw right in the gut, right in the axe-wound Gorgug made before, and sends him spinning backward, back down to the Row. Riz grins in spite of himself. _Take that, you fucking squid bastard, trying to kill_ my _friends._

He scrambles down and runs over, ready to grab the crown from Wicklaw's lifeless hands and end this so they can get back to what really matters, which is figuring out how they're going to save Adaine. Maybe they can use the pirate crown as a bargaining chip, get someone to teleport them to Fallinel, maybe they can--

Riz is quick but he's not quick enough to see Wicklaw's gun raising before it fires. The bullet impacts Riz's chest and a second later there's a blaze of psychic pain and Riz _drops._

 _Stupid,_ he thinks as he's lying there on the already blood-soaked planks. _Let your guard down too early, Riz._

A stupid mistake, the latest in a long line of stupid mistakes. They lost one of their clerics immediately, and Riz wasn't able to do enough damage to bring her back. Fabian and Kristen are _both_ just stuck there, stunned. And those fucking elves just _took_ Adaine, said something to her and then _took_ her and none of them were able to do anything to stop it. And Riz is lying here motionless on the ground and he’s thinking about being paralyzed, just last night, the Shadow Cat leaning over him with all those sharp teeth behind her warm smile and himself, terrified, trapped, telling her everything, losing any advantage they had, getting Ragh’s mom killed if it wasn’t for a weird contingency plan that Aguefort forgot about. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

_We've got to get better at this,_ Riz thinks as he feels boots impacting against his body and feels himself slipping even closer to death. Sandralynn is fighting her way towards him, hand already starting to glow with healing magic and Riz is lying there bleeding out and all he can think is _we've got to be stronger. We've got to be better._ I _have got to be better._

**vii. aelwyn**

She can’t keep track of time any more. 

Exhaustion is an old friend at this point. She doesn’t even remember what magic feels like, what it’s like to have the mental reserves to shoot fire from your fingertips or bend the fabric of the world around you. She doesn’t even know if she remembers how to do it anymore. 

She’s bored, which is worse. In the early days there had been questions and trials and interrogations but they’re _bored_ with her now, she guesses, so she’s just stuck here in a crystal ball, like that stupid giant arcane focus her father gave to Adaine, that goes round and round and round and round and round.

Constant turning aside, it's a lot like those palimpsests she helped trap all the Aguefort girls in. 

Fitting punishment, universe. Thanks, _thank you_ , Aelwyn Abernant _gets_ the irony. Aelwyn Abernant doesn’t even know why she did what she did, except that it was something to _do_ , except that it made her feel smart and powerful and useful, except that it was _her_ idea and not her father’s, like all the parties, like all the boys, like how everything she ever did was either because her father wanted her to do it or because he didn’t. Round and round and round. 

“Here we are again! Here we are, again.” 

Adaine’s voice.

For a second Aelwyn thinks it’s just in her head. But this is clearer. More real. Her head snaps to the door of her amber-marble prison just in time to see blonde hair disappearing from view. 

Adaine is here. Adaine is _here_ . Has she been captured? Did she break in? What did she _do_? 

In some ways Adaine is so simple, so easily manipulated-- _here, steal this book from the library. It’ll let you be part of something big and secret, it’ll let you be better than me_ . But in so many other ways Adaine is a surprise. Angry, unpredictable, fighting every step of the way. Making things difficult for no reason. Why did she always want to make things so _difficult_ ? Out in the open rather than sneaking around behind closed doors, the screw-up, the inconvenience. And then, the Oracle. And Aelwyn, the perfect child, the criminal. And both of them, trapped, the whole time, trapped. _Here we are again_. 

She presses palms against glass and imagines herself breaking through, imagines running after Adaine and--what? Apologizing? Attacking? Just standing there, and...and looking at her?

She doesn’t know what she would do. 

It doesn’t matter, because the glass is solid, and Adaine has moved on, and still Aelwyn cannot move. 

**viii. adaine**

She’s used to people trying to trick her into a choice-that-isn’t-a-choice. Her parents used to pull this bullshit all the time. 

Usually there is another choice, and usually it involves magic. Hard for someone to lord their superiority over you or guilt or manipulate you into doing things when they’re puking their guts out. 

The problem is, making that other choice usually involves being willing to get hurt. It usually involves making things worse for yourself in the name of standing up against whoever's pushing you around.

The creepy little elven girl is holding out her hand, and Adaine knows she doesn't have a choice this time. She could run again, sure. This stupid stone spell is still creeping up her body but she could cast _Greater Invisibility_ and disappear into the Row and even if they _Counterspelled_ it she could at least fight to the end and make them drag her unconscious body back to Fallinel. 

But it's not just her who's going to get hurt. They're already losing this fight, and these asshole wizards are right, they can't take the elves on top of the pirates. Fig and Gorgug just appeared right behind her, and both of them are bloody and breathing heavily. Riz is only a few feet away, this illithid pirate towering over his small frame. Kristen and Fabian are still stunned below. And Adaine’s father might be reluctant to kill her, but she knows him well enough to know he won't hesitate to make her watch him kill her friends.

So she doesn't have a choice, this time. And she doesn’t hesitate. 

“You can take me,” she says, tightly, quietly, all attention focused on the little girl with the fire on her fingertip. “But I will never, _ever_ do what you want. Do you understand?” Her gaze flicks to her father at the last word. He is smiling, smugly. She hates him. 

“I understand,” says the elf child, devoid of emotion. “Do you submit to come with us and discuss the rest?” 

Submit. Adaine doesn’t like that word at all. But the fire is growing brighter on the girl’s fingertip, and there’s no choice. 

Adaine lets out a long, slow sigh. She does not look at her friends. She doesn’t quite trust herself to hold it together if she does, and she needs to hold it together, because _they_ need to keep fighting. So she just looks at the little girl, and she takes her hand. 

And then she is gone, falling through a void of stars. She uses her last fourth-level spell slot to send out one more desperate plea to Ayda Aguefort--no formulated argument, no careful plan, just “my friends are being killed, _please_ help them!” 

The message is whisked away with the smell of salt on the air, sea breeze like a kiss goodbye. The response comes, immediate, as Adaine feels her feet touch solid ground. “Your friends are my friends.” 

Adaine could _cry_. 

She doesn’t, though. She pulls herself together and takes in her surroundings. She feels Boggy pressing his face against her skin and with his help, she resists the last of the flesh-to-stone spell, then dismisses Boggy back to his pocket dimension with a silent apology. As much as it would help to have him here, she’d rather not have him taken away from her.

The other elves are leaving, and Adaine is left standing alone in the courtyard with her father and the white-gowned child. They come at her with pretended kindness and porcelain faced decorum, congratulating her and speaking in even tones and dispelling her every attempt to rebel. She does not answer their questions. She doesn’t let Keyr’s taunt get under her skin. Maybe Adaine is a good Oracle, maybe she isn’t. It doesn’t really seem to matter right now. 

“Would you like to know how your friends are doing?” her father says, lightly, as if they’re discussing the news over breakfast. Adaine goes very still. It’s been a full minute. For better or for worse, the battle is over. _Yes, yes, please tell me they’re okay,_ Adaine’s mind is screaming, but she keeps her mouth shut and her fists clenched. 

Keyr raises one hand to her temple and closes her eyes for one of the longest moments Adaine has ever experienced. “Your friends yet live,” she says, and Adaine can’t keep the relief off her face. Keyr has no reason to lie. If she was going to lie, she would tell her her friends are dead. So this must be the truth. They’re okay. It was worth it. They’re _okay_. 

She doesn’t say anything else until Keyr has walked away and she’s facing down her father, alone. Her father, with his disapproving glare, the way he looks at her like she’s something he picked off the bottom of his shoe. This used to bother her a lot more than it does right now. She’s not scared of him any more. She’s not scared of him, even though she’s smart enough to put the pieces together. Adaine won’t cooperate, and here’s Keyr, this child with barbed words about Adaine’s skill as an Oracle. If Adaine dies, they get a new Oracle. They get someone who will play their game.

Adaine has already figured this out, and she doesn’t care. Let them kill her. The people she loves are _safe_. Adaine will die before she’ll ever, ever do what Fallinel or her father wants. 

She yells in her father’s face until he leaves her alone. She burns all her spell slots and when they’re gone she lies face down on the stone courtyard, makes them drag her to her feet with magical chains. She sees her sister trapped in an orb and it feels like she should be able to gloat over this, to feel satisfied in some way. Aelwyn tormented Adaine their entire lives, Aelwyn tried to kill Adaine, Aelwyn was _evil_.

But this doesn't feel like justice. It just feels bitter. Almost _funny_ , isn’t it, the way the irony of fate works out. “Here we are again!” Adaine calls out, not even caring if Aelwyn can hear her. Reunited, stuck in the same place. “Here we are, again.” 

There is no answer from Aelwyn’s cell. 

Adaine sits in the cell where they throw her and she pulls her knees up to her chest and she tries not to look scared. She wants to be at home. She wants to be drinking tea with Jawbone. She wants to be sitting in the cemetery talking to Zayn. She wants to be rolling her eyes at Tracker and Kristen’s PDA. She wants to be in Riz’s office solving mysteries, she wants to be in the stands of the Bloodrush field cheering on Fabian and Gorgug and Ragh, she wants to be in Wizard class, she wants to be sitting on Fig’s bed braiding her friend's hair while Fig tests a new song, she's scared and she wants to be _home_. 

But she doesn't want this stupid fucking _Detect Thoughts_ spell to see any of that. So she covers it up with anger, as she always has. Anger is easy. Anger is right there. Fuck this stupid fucking wannabe-Oracle. Fuck the entire government of Fallinel, and fuck that squid-face pirate for putting her in a position where she even had to make this choice. Fuck her pathetic father and his pretentious pretended concern. Fuck her mother for abandoning her--abandoning her--getting the crown somehow and still _abandoning her_. Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this. 

She’s spent enough goddamn time frozen in fear. Angry. Petty. Inconvenient. She can be that. She can do that. She might not be able to stop whatever they're about to do to her, but she can fight them every goddamn step of the way. Adaine Abernant will not make it easy for anyone to break her. 

Adaine Abernant will not be moved. 

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me at drinkingdeadpeopletea.tumblr.com


End file.
